On 2/7/2020 4:43 AM, Wayne Shumaker wrote:
It is a nice shot. I have never been to Crane's beach in the winter, only
summer, even during the 35 years I lived in MA. Now in AZ, I'll have to put it
on my list when I visit MA. May have to find my mud boots though. Are snowy
owls found in Glouster or Rockport, or the Cape?
I do see, at 100%, a lot of camera processing artificers. I don't see any
mis-focus or motion blur. It would have been interesting to see what -2EV ISO
invariance would do to change the camera processing. But how much time did you
actually have to make that kind of decision?
I don't know if any of the Topaz AI tools could sharpen it up a bit?
Hmmm, I had the same question. Thinking most folks here wouldn't view large, and that I do natter on about post
processing details, and minutia, a lot already, I only replied to Mike:
=============
It seems you hit a Perfect Storm, with an image file that neither DxO Prime NR nor AI Gigapixel get along well with.
<http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/Others/Usher/SnowyOwl.htm>
No matter what I did with settings, at least while still reducing noise, DxO
Prime NR generated lots of artifacts.
Topaz Denoise did a much nicer, cleaner job, a light application of Topaz Stabilize sharpened, sans new artifacts. With
normal processing, in this case, LCE, Levels and Curves, there are some artifacts, if one looks for them, but overall,
quite nice, at original size.
Uprez, and the combo of DxO PNR and AI Gigapixel is pretty bad. Topaz Denoise fares much better. But, unusually, it has
more artifacts than simply using the PS Resize tool with Auto choice of method.
Add levels and curves, anything to increase tonal differentiation, and the artifacts that are already there become more
obvious.
A case where original size makes a nice photo.
=============
Although it's probably only us Digital Darkroom nuts who have noticed, we've slithered into a new world, where the
intended purpose of a program/tool/plug-in may not be all it does; where the "best" application often depends on the
file being worked on far more often than in the past, and so on.
Example: Topaz Denoise AI was trained to reduce noise. In many cases, it does that magically well, up to medium ISOs.
But it also does something else, perhaps as an unintended consequence of its training diet. Used on a base ISO file,
with sharpening set to zero, and Recover Details set to 5-10, it often/usually does a wonderful job of bringing out fine
detail, with a side effect of brightening a little.
Example, from above: AI Gigapixel is another AI program that often works pure magic. Yet in the Owl photo of Mike's,
it's not as good at 200% as PS's own Image=>Image size=>Resample, Automatic. Look at the sample closely; GigaP has
generated more artifacts, esp. around the grass.
Example: FocusMagic generally does a better job, quicker, of post downsampling resharpening for web sizes than any of
the options in Topaz Sharpen AI.
Don't get me wrong, I consider the Topaz AI stuff to have raised my processing to a new level, and would hate to be
without them. But, unlike programs written by coders, there are side effects of the training examples from which they
"learned" that have nothing to do with the intended purpose, some good, other not so much.
I do wish they ran faster, though. With some photos, I end up trying both options in Denoise AI, with various settings,
and/or all three options in Sharpen AI. My processing is slower as a result. The results make it worthwhile, to me, but
it can be tedious at times. I added a top end-ish GPU, which helps a lot, but . . .
Deep AI Moose
Here in AZ I have the occasional horned owl on my roof hooting into the
bathroom vent. No snowy owls here in the desert.
Good you respect their habitat. Here, if one startles a desert turtle, or tries
to move it out of the way, it might urinate and then dehydrate and die.
So, carry lettuce for hydration?
Let Us Moose
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What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
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